The invention is directed to the field of communication, such as telephony, and in particular to telephone apparatus such as for use in wireless telephony, including, for example, cordless telephones and cellular telephones.
Wireless telephones, such as cordless telephones and cellular telephones, have become ubiquitous because they provide users with the opportunity to make and receive telephone calls while mobile. In exchange for this mobility advantage, most users have learned to accept some differences between wireless telephone service and conventional wired telephone service.
For example, users are aware that wireless handsets are battery powered, and understand that a battery must be sufficiently charged for a wireless handset to operate effectively. Users also understand that the battery may eventually need to be replaced after a large number of recharges. This may be contrasted with wired plain old telephone service (POTS), that is perceived by users to be extremely reliable. Engineers designing wireless telephones are thus motivated to develop designs that extend the battery life of wireless telephones so that they are perceived by the user as being more reliable.
One conventional way to extend battery life is to include a standby mode in a cordless telephone. When in this mode, the handset of the cordless telephone turns off its RF transceiver elements, thereby saving power. The transceiver elements may be periodically turned on for brief intervals, and then returned to the off state. When a handset is not cradled with its corresponding base unit, a transition from the standby state to a fully operational state is initiated by user activation of an input unit, such as by activation of a xe2x80x9cPHONExe2x80x9d button. After the xe2x80x9cPHONExe2x80x9d button is activated, there is typically a one to two second delay until a link with the base unit is established and dial tone is present. This delay may be perceived by the user as an inconvenience or as an indication of poor quality as it differs from the immediate dial tone users are used to receiving with wired telephones.
This is one example of a difference between wireless and wired telephones. There are other differences in the way wireless telephones operate when compared to wired telephones. Although these differences may appear to be insignificant, especially to a user fully aware of the relative merits between wired and wireless telephones, they may cause confusion or inconvenience to less knowledgeable or less technically savvy users. For example, a user of a wired telephone is used to picking up a ringing telephone and immediately being connected with an incoming caller. If the same user answers a ringing cordless telephone that is not cradled in its corresponding base unit, however, the user will not be immediately connected, but must first activate a user input unit, such as the xe2x80x9cPHONExe2x80x9d button, to effectively answer the incoming call. If the user is not aware of this difference and the telephone continues to ring, the user may become confused, and may erroneously believe that the telephone is broken. It would therefore be advantageous to have an improved wireless telephone that appears to operate more like a wired telephone.
In one embodiment, a communication device according to the invention includes an accelerometer, and an operational aspect of the communication device is adapted to be influenced by an output of the accelerometer. The communication device may be a to telephone, such as a wireless telephone, and the accelerometer may influence the operational aspect of the wireless telephone to advantageously make the wireless telephone operate more like a wired telephone. An exemplary wireless handset according to the invention may include a wireless transceiver, a controller, and an accelerometer, wherein the controller is adapted to receive an output from the accelerometer and affect a state of the wireless transceiver based thereon.
In another embodiment according to the invention, a method of operating a communication device includes the steps of determining a motion characteristic of the communication device, and affecting an operational aspect of the communication device based on the motion characteristic. An exemplary method of operating a wireless telephone handset according to the invention includes the steps of receiving a ring signal, sensing a movement of the handset, and transitioning to an off-hook state from an on-hook state based on the sensed movement. An alternative method of operating a wireless telephone handset includes the steps of determining an absence of voice activity, determining an absence of motion, and transitioning to an on-hook state based on the absence of voice activity and absence of motion.